Kyoto Textile Tour Days 7 and 8

Tour day 7 (March 25) was a free day. A bunch of folks went to the Kitano Tenmangu shrine, where we were early in the week, for a big flea market; I fretted about what was going to fit in my suitcase and opted to sleep in and walk about with my DH.  The tour company gave us plenty of ideas in a handy brochure but we elected to go a little shopping and then walked to a couple of temples I had not seen; the streets were crazy busy, so a zen garden seemed about right.

March 26 photos

We had the honor of visiting Hiroshi Saito, who is an abstract arts using natural dyes and yuzen techniques to create dyed work for clothing and wall pieces. There were a number of fascinating things about this man. First of all, if you were to pronounce his full name, it goes on for minutes.

His work was astounding. This large piece was stretched out across his studio, ready for him to work. He'd already applied 3 types of mordants: alum, copper, and iron to the stretched fabric and let it dry. After we arrived, he applied 3 types of dye; I have that data somewhere and will find it and update here when I do. He applied the dye, one color at a time intuitively and without plan; this piece was in honor of springtime. He'll go back later and add some rice paste resist and more layers of dye until the piece is done.





His wife sews some of the fabrics into shirts, like this one.  There were some pieces that may have gotten some details painted on after as well. He showed us an album of his kimonos; they are truly amazing pieces.

He's also very socially aware. After the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in 2011, he felt he needed to change to processes that were gentler on the environment, and gave up chemical dyes for natural dyes. He also works in the areas affected by the earthquake to bring art to the region, and he feels it's a necessary part of life and it's too easy for people struggling to recover from a disaster like that to lose focus on things like art. He also works with the disabled to produce textile art since abstract art can be done by people with a wide range of disabilities.

The next stop was Gallery Kei, where we visited Kei Kawasaki and her collection of museum grade antique folk textiles.  She had cloth made from bashofu, hemp, wisteria, linden, and elm; some well over 100 years old; and we got to touch it all. Also, old kimonos,  fabulous boro pieces, and many non-textile antiques. I admired her pieces very much and would encourage any lover of textiles to visit her shop! Here she is showing us how some of the bast fibers are harvested and prepped for weaving.

The rest of the group went to the dyeing museum, which I will visit on my next trip... and then a goodbye dinner, which I elected to skip in favor of returning to Tokyo to see Ossan Live, a very happy Tokyo based band; we went with two other Americans and were the only foreigners in the room.  It was a very nice evening, even though we didn't order the half size salted squid guts at the restaurant after.

The Textile Tour? I highly recommend it to any textile lover; we had a mix of makers and admirers on the trip, probably more admirers than makers... but it appealed to both. We had access to amazing artists and studios; insights into processes from Nancy, who lived in Kyoto and worked there as a fiber artist; and Andy, our guide and translator whose knowledge of and commentary on Japanese culture really took this tour over the top.

Kyoto Textile Tour Days 5 and 6

March 23 photos

First let me say how honored we were to be able to visit these amazing artists and craftsmen.

This day was Nishijin day. There are various articles on the web detailing what Nishijin textiles are and how they are made, and there are a number of Youtube videos that are excellent. I'm going to start by roughly outlining the steps as I understood them...

We were honored to be able to visit some amazing artists and craftsmen.

Let's assume an artist has already created a full size drawing of the design repeat for the obi; some obis do not have repeated patterns so then the drawing would be the full length. Obi are generally about 30 cm by about 300 cm (12" by 9.8'). 

A specialized company pixelates the drawing (this used to be done by hand on graph paper but is often done by computer now) and produces a color plan, weft thread by weft thread, for the weaver, as well as a set of punch cards used in the jacquard loom. The cards are stitched together in order. We visited the Ozasa Company and saw examples of the various steps; I was unable to take photos as the designs are property of their customers.

Then, the designer or customer works with a gold leaf artist to figure out what patterning on the gold leaf will work best with the design, then the gold leaf is applied to washi paper in a multi step process using a liquid extracted from a sumac plant; the artist has to get accustomed to the liquid, otherwise it will itch!!! The gold leaf artist can create different affects using scraps and "gold trash".  The gold-leafed washi is cut into very very narrow strips but attached at sides of the paper to keep it in order until it's woven. We met Yasushi Noguchi, who gave us an overview of the process. He told us an interesting story about a commission he once had; the customer wanted his gold leaf sheets to be irregular, like the background in the famous iris work by Korin at the Nezu Museum. No one knew how this was done. He found another pattern his customer like but continued to research and ponder this for years until he finally received some untrimmed sheets of gold leaf and figured it out. I'm not going to detail it here; he described it. but it's pretty in-depth; but there are now scholarly papers authored by Noguchi-san detailing the technique. 

Meanwhile, back to the Nishijin Obi. The weaving company pulls the appropriate color of silk from their inventory or contacts with a silk dyer to get the shades they need created. We visited the dye workshop owned by the Okamoto brothers, who custom dye silk yarns for kimono and obi weavers. They use red, yellow, and blue (not sure if they use black as well) to match any color you can bring in, without test runs and apparently without challenges by incrementally adding tiny bits of dye until the right shade is reached.

There are a number of interim steps that we did not see... For example, the warp is sent out to be wound by a warp-winding-specialist before the weaver starts. Apparently the level of specialization is staggering, but the specialization this entails lets each artisan be a master of what he does.

We saw two weaving houses, one that does hand weaving and one that does machine weaving. First, we were in the home and studio of Tatsumura Koho. He believes in having his works hand woven, as it gives greater control over the weft-threads per inch; this would mean he was more control over how the fabric looks and feels.  We first saw some of the amazing works he and his family have produces; both wearable and decorative pieces, some reproduction, some artistic. One line of particular note was a series of historic fabrics that they researched, dating back to the 6th and 7th century; they researched how the textile was woven, and what colors must have been used and now can create that fabric again for use in period settings as well as modern interior decorating. Another piece depicts a scene from the Tales of Genji that was not in the original drawings. They spent a year researching period details; clothing, interior design, building architecture; to create a Nishijin woven piece that might authentically depict a scene from that period.





Here's the weaver at work on a manual loom. On each pick, the pattern shed is controlled by the punch cards; the pattern colors for that row are laid in; and the next strip of the gold leaf is laid in. There seemed to be a fine silk weft used as well to lock in the threads after every pattern row. The weaving is done upside down; the weaver is looking at the back side of the fabric, and checks his work in a mirror held under the growing fabric.







We also visited Nagashima Orimono, where we got to tour their wholesale showroom and see powered machine looms at work. The first floor of the building was their yarn stash. Here's a very small amount of the colors that were available. Upstairs was the Obi showroom with hundreds of different obis in all colors and pattern and styles. The patterns were amazing!  I didn't take any photos here, I was completely overwhelmed by what I saw. Then on to their weaving studio. Who knew I was such a machinery geek? The looms were fabulous, and noisy, and each attended by someone watching to see if anything went wrong. These machines were computer controlled as opposed to using the punch cards of the other jacquard looms. The mechanism handling the gold leaf washi slices was really interesting!

Our last stop was Hosoo, founded in 1688, a traditional obi and kimono weaver that has entered the high end fashion and interior design market. We saw some of the historic sample boards they've created for imperial and high end clients... They're now also creating wider fabrics (obis are about 12" and kimono fabric no more then 14") in traditional and more modern patterns using the traditional weaving techniques. They're also home to Japan Handmade, a collaboration of 6 Kyoto craft families to create new uses for the objects made in the traditional way; a couple of examples are champagne buckets made with the old-style bucket making techniques and copper wire baskets made with the same methods used to make strainers.

March 24 photos

OMG it was cold today. I'm going to jump ahead to say that although it didn't precipitate heavily, there was some form of water falling occasionally from the sky and much of that was snow. I'm not complaining but I really didn't have all the right clothes for standing outside most of the day; I think I need to rethink my March packing strategy to include some emergency cold gear!

We went by taxi to Ohara, a little farm village about 30 minutes or so northeast of Kyoto. Our first stop was the farmers market which has an amazing array of vegetables I did not recognize! Plus some most excellent mochi filled with bean paste and some lovely handmade items, including a lovely purse which is now mine.

We walked from there to Ohara Kobo, a natural dye studio, where we heard a lecture on natural dyeing and were able to dye our own scarves! I did solid indigo blue but a few people did some really lovely tie dye. Using four colors; indigo for blue, madder for red, some plant for yellow, and another for brown which I did not recognize, they can make most colors; colors are not vat mixed, but the object is dyed in one color then the other. They had lovely dyed items for sale, many woven locally, so the yarn you see hanging here was not destined to come home with me...

Lunch was at Wappado, where we got a country style set menu. It was nearly all vegetarian except for a small amount of fish and all delicious. This was the second of five courses. One of the courses was a spring onion and chrysanthemum leaf pizza.

After lunch, we continued walking up the hill to Mitsuru Kobo, a dye studio specializing in kakishibu, a dye made form persimmon tannin. Apparently this color of the dyed piece will change over time; so when you buy a piece, you intend to appreciate and cherish it as it changes; this is the pact between the artist, the owner, and the piece of art. They were mostly. dying those two or there piece hangings you find over doors in Japan. On the left, you see on still drying in the studio. On the left, you see a finished piece, being washed in the river. Since they're just using fermented indigo, fermented persimmon, and rice paste on these pieces, there's no ecological issues with using the river to perform the final rinse. It was an amazing treat to see this piece the stream.

Finally, a walk up the hill on the other side of the valley to the Sanzen-in temple.  All along the path to the temple, there were restaurants and stalls selling snacks, souvenirs of all kinds, and lots and lots of pickle. The temple is famous for having many small statues of Jizo, Buddhist protector of travelers and children.

Kyoto Textile Tour, Days 3 and 4

March 21 photos!

Day 3 was a very full day...

Yasushi Ando, master Yuzen dyer, gave us a presentation on his art. I love this guy... so enthusiastic and excited about what he does, and he does it particularly well.  I have more pictures of some of his work at the photo link above; please take a peek!

Yuzen dyeing uses rice paste as a resist to block out areas that are to remain uncolored... I'm not going to go into the process here but will try it one day at home on a very basic level and detail the process then. The roll here on the left is a full kimono; it features shibori, yuzen, and some rather fine embroidery.





Then Jorie Johnson, an American felt artist living in Kyoto, talked about her work, and what it was like bringing an unknown fiber art to Japan. Her work was impressive! Thoughtful inspiring art... She has made felt rugs to be used in tea houses in winter and small mats to be used under decorative vases for tea ceremonies, as well as the types of wearable items we're used to seeing (scarves, vests, mitts, etc).

After lunch, we walked to the Shibori museum, where we watched a video, viewed their latest exhibit, and had a shopping opportunity... I mentioned that I'd taken a shibori class there before, and showed the guide a photo; he knows our instructor from 9 years ago!

After the Shibori museum, we went to Sou Sou, which is about 7 or 8 shops from the same textile design company, each small shop covering one genre (women's clothes, men's clothes, hand clothes, shoes and tabi socks, etc). I bought a lovely handkerchief; beautiful cotton with bicycles on it. It wasn't until I got home and read the brochure, that I realized just how special their textiles are! They are Ise-momen cotton, which is lightly twisted cotton that is starched for hardness and woven on a hand loom; when the starch is washed out, you end up with remarkably soft cloth.  Sou Sou gave me a free bag of potato chips for textile design fans.

And finally, an exhibition of various Kyoto textile artists, including a couple of modern yuzen kimono at Gallery Gallery, at the top of an old nearby building; Jorie was one of the exhibitors, and joined us at the gallery!


March 22 photos



Is there a better word to use to describe a trip to Yoshiko Mori's home and studio than pilgrimage? His family has been working with indigo since the 1870's.  They grow their own indigo, harvest and strip the leaves from it. Then, it's fermented (composted) in their old barn, and formed into bricks for storage. The resident bacteria or spores or whatever that are perfect for fermenting the indigo are present in the mud and straw walls of the yarn... Mori-san showed us half a brick of indigo from one of their first batches; it's 140 years old; and the other half of the brick is in the Japanese National Museum.

Mori-san's jacket in this photo belonged to his grandfather, and is pretty much the same color now as it was then. The particular way Japanese indigo is made makes it particularly color-fast.






Then we learned what goes into an indigo vat, and saw where dyeing takes place; Mori-san and his son demonstrated dyeing yarn and washi paper, in large ceramic pots sunk into the ground; in the winter, a small brazier it set into wells between the pots to keep them a temperature that indigo likes.

I bought some indigo-dyed silk yarn that is the color of the sky, destined for my loom and eventually for my DH.

From there we went to the Miho Museum, a building with an amazing sense of space and presence, designed by I. M. Pei. We had a vegetarian bento lunch made from happy vegetables (seriously, we watched a video about it, and these are pampered vegetables), then wandered the museum for a couple of hours; I saw an exhibit on Japanese glass, then an exhibit with artifacts from the Ancient Orient; lots of Sumerian and Mesopotamian pieces. Google the Miho museum and look for images if you'd like to see it; I was too busy looking at the building to photograph it. However, it's a place made to be experienced and the photos I've seen don't do it justice. There's an initial building where you start that initiates you into the idea you're entering an interesting place; then a walk up a hill dotting with seasonally spectacular foliage (it'll be bursting into cherry blossom bloom shortly); then through a tunnel... when you near the end of the tunnel, the entrance to the museum is framed by the tunnel walls and ... well... you just need to see it. Especially the view out over the valley from the museum halls.

After that, we went on to Shigaraki, a pottery town dating back to the 1200's. Shigaraki is famous for it's Tenuki statues; they're a mythical Japanese raccoon-dog that does some amazing things with it's very large and stretchy scrotum (for example, uses it as a umbrella in the rain, or like an parachute)... But this is not why we came to Shigaraki. We met Satoshi Arakawa, who moved to the area to study pottery. Here's some of his work, welcoming us into his garden.

Arakawa-san built his own kiln, which he fires up twice a year to fire his pots without glaze for 5 days... He adds wood every 2 hours and goes through about 250 bundles of wood. The color and design on the pots comes from ash in the kiln settling into the pieces... He demonstrated how he mixes his own clay by mixing standard potters clay with light colored gritty clay he digs on this property, then created this lovely vase as we watched.

Kyoto Textile Tour, Days 1 and 2

I'm on a textile tour of Kyoto with Esprit Travel and Tours. I'll try to get photos up daily, maybe a few days per post...

March 18: I travelled to Kyoto; Fuji-san hid from me in a grey haze and a wreath of clouds. We all met and had dinner and introductions together.

March 19 photos

Daitoku-ji Zen Monastery complex.

We received a introduction to the Way of Tea by the abbot of the Zuiho-in temple and were instructed in proper breathing and how to improve the heart (I think both philosophically and physically, but ultimately they're the same, right?).  Then on to Koto-in, with it's mossy garden and very very old tearooms.

Lunch at Izusen, vegetarian Zen-style temple food... On to the Yuziuki kimono shop in the Kamishichiken geisha district; it's in an Edo period geisha building. Amazing textiles, amazing building, amazing narration! I modeled a Okayama selvedge denim kimono...

Then we toured the Kitano Tenman-gu shrine, dedicated to a scholar; because of this, many students come here to offer and pray for success in school. The plum trees were blooming. From here, we returned to the hotel and Andy, our tour guide took us down Sanjo-dori and pointed out some amazing shops.





March 20 photos.

A very busy day today... First, we went to the studio of Mari Horie, who's a katazome master; it's a rice paste resist method. She demo'ed how to do katazome on paper and then showed us her studio where they work on fabric. What an amazing artist, and lovely, graceful hostess! Here she is showing us how the rice paste is applied.

On to the Konchi-in sub temple of the Nanzen-ji monastery. There was an amazing zen garden... Andy described the features in detail, and all of a sudden, zen gardens make more sense!!! Sadly, it was nearly noon, and the light was so crappy, so I took photos of the other parts of the garden, but not the zen garden. I did check Google images and it looks like most photos of it are crappy; could it be that zen gardens are meant to be contemplated and not just photographed?

Lunch was at Yachiyo, a historic ryokan and featured boiled tofu (yudofu); lovely surroundings and tasty food.

Then we walked through the neighborhood the workshop of Mitsuo Nakao and his wife; they are kumihimo artists.  Just how good are they? Well, Nakao-san did the silk cords and knots for the Ise Shrine when it was rebuilt. Wowza. I became demo-girl again and Nakao-san tried to teach me to braid; I think I did okay, but he was very kind. These braids and knots add elegance and importance to anything; he showed us pieces worn by monks on ceremonial occasions, pieces used in temple, and even pieces used by Sumo wrestling referees. Nakao-san is possibly the happiest person I have ever met; merely looking at him makes you want to smile.

Following was an exhibition at the Kyoto City University of the Arts featuring a retrospective of works by Professor Nobuko Hiroi. Upstairs were items from her personal collection.

Many of us went to the Aizen Kobo Indigo Workshop after the museum... There is a workshop full of indigo dyed fabrics. I saw fabrics woven then dyed, fabrics dyed, then woven, shibori, and kasuri, and clothing made from most of this. There were rolls of exquisite fabric of all sorts just waiting for a purpose. And dyed yarn. I came home with a green silk scarf, dyed with indigo and camellia seeds, and nearly missed purchasing a lovely scarf dyed with madder. I did purchase some silk dyed pink and red (madder? I'm not sure), with the intent to put it on the loom.

What a lovely day.

Shoelaces

What does it say about me that there is nothing so trivial or mundane in my life that I cannot delight in ornamenting it by hand? Witness my tablet woven shoelace, which I I am ridiculously pleased with.

I met up with an old friend yesterday, and we discussed, as well as many other topics, the nature of blogs. He reminded me that blogs just need to please their intended audiences. Mine is really here to remind me of what I'm learning in the fiber realm; so there is a lot of technical information that you, Gentle Reader, may not find interesting or comprehensible. Sorry!

Anyways, the laces are 10/2 mercerized cotton (leftover from the napkin gamp project), 2 border cards and 10 pattern cards. Pattern from a John Mullarkey class. 2nd shoelace (not pictured) is a different pattern.

What did I learn in the class?

• Pull on tail and weft after 2 and 4 pics to collapse your weaving down to the right size when you're starting.
• Figure out in the first couple of repeats what your weaving is telling you. For example, buildup of twist, or direction of arrows in the pattern can tell you if you're rolling forward or backward. Jot this down in case you forget, which you will, if you're me.
• Mark the hole on the top warp side on one of the border cards so you know when you're done 4 turns.
• When throwing the weft, catch the loop on your ring finger; snug down against the weaving; pinch the loop in place with thumb and forefinger. Pull until the loop disappears, then a teensy bit more. If you still have a picot, snug it in a bit more after turning the deck and packing the weft.

What did I learn as a result of class?

• I need to be making a project. Just weaving bands does not appeal.
• I'm getting better at reading where I am in the pattern and at picking out a few rows when I make a mistake.
• I may prefer to weave on an inkle loom as opposed to weighting the warp.
• The cats really enjoy coffee and table weaving on the deck.